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Technology Stocks : EMC How high can it go? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Michael W. Brom who wrote (6254)	5/5/1999 11:54:00 AM
From: James	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17183

My purchases are these: $99.00, $115, $108, $102 & $97.25. Since the initial purchase @ 99, I have quadrupled that position. I will continue buying until this 'sale' is over with. ;-) Cheers, James

To: Michael W. Brom who wrote (6254)	5/5/1999 11:57:00 AM
From: mpnunes	Respond to of 17183

EMC featured as Hoover's Online company of the day: You don't hear much about the special corporate perks reserved for the business world's sales teams. Like the free steaming cups of anxiety all day, every day, or the weight (on-the-chest) rooms filled with the strains and huffs of hyperventilation before the next customer call. EMC, the largest seller of corporate stand-alone data storage devices, personifies this scene. It's a place where large boxes of unsold storage systems were once stacked in the offices of sales managers -- forcing them to scale the piles in order to leave their desks -- until revenue goals were met; where hundreds of employees tie their paychecks to quarterly objectives; where job candidates are considered mainly for their ability to wrap their arms around urgency and adjust quickly to change. And where success is the norm. EMC owns more than a third of the market for storage systems, the closet-sized boxes crammed with disk drives that house a corporation's data. Acronym-esis IBM, the market's #2, has just over 20%. Through an Asian economic crisis and toughening competition, first quarter 1999 marked the eighth consecutive quarter in which EMC sales and profit growth topped 30%. Even more indicative are its shareholders' fortunes. During the past decade, EMC's stock has outperformed every other stock in the Standard & Poor's 500 index, except for Dell Computer's. Such wealth is catapulting the company into the elite technological atmosphere where powerhouses like Intel and Cisco dwell. All this with a product that's about as sexy as grandma's perfume! EMC did it by becoming the first to realize a simple truth: Every woodland creature in the bushy computer forest must eventually forage for more storage. EMC plied its trade by selling data storage devices to users of bulky mainframe computers. It wasn't until Mike Ruettgers (veteran of Raytheon and Keane) joined the company in the late 1980s that EMC's reputation was sealed and the proper course plotted. Ruettgers, a boot-clad Okie who had vowed to become a CEO even before being accepted at Harvard University's business school, waged a focused attack against Big Blue's storage dominance. With lower prices and more reliable technology (the company spends more time testing than assembling its systems), EMC took the lead by 1993. Instead of celebrating, Ruettgers pushed his engineers into the realm for software that made its storage devices compatible with different types of computers and operating systems. Its units now hum alongside more varieties of computers than do Hitachi's, Storage Technology's, or those of its other rivals. Rather than compete, most of the world's server manufacturers just resell EMC units with their computers. Adding to its repertoire functions such as data management and file backup (once reserved for servers), EMC may be running even faster. In a storage industry turbocharged by the Internet, an e-commerce push has seen Charles Schwab, Cisco Systems, and other customers using its devices to store their millions of daily transactions. The company is also giving its service and support arm more definition, working to help customers gauge their storage capacity needs and use the devices more efficiently. EMC's ability to charge more than competitors could change as companies with comparable technology emerge. But who knows where EMC -- already 18 months ahead of the design curve in some industry watchers' eyes -- will be when that happens? It continues to amplify its sales force, favoring aggressive ex-jocks (are you listening John Elway? Wayne Gretzky?) and promising stock options, commissions, and bonuses to the magnificent winners. And a break room refrigerator perpetually stocked with panic for the rest.